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2135T Robin Wall Kimmererhe girl in the picture holds a slate with her name and %u201cclass of %u201975%u201d chalked in, a girl the color of deerskin with long dark hair and inky unreadable eyes that meet yours and won%u2019t look away. I remember that day. I was wearing the new plaid shirt that my parents had given me, an outfit I thought to be the hallmark of all foresters. When I looked back at the photo later in life, it was a puzzle to me. I recall being elated to be going to college, but there is no trace of that in the girl%u2019s face.Even before I arrived at school, I had all of my answers prepared for the freshman intake interview. I wanted to make a good first impression. There were hardly any women at the forestry school in those days and certainly none who looked like me. The adviser peered at me over his glasses and said, %u201cSo, why do you want to major in botany?%u201d His pencil was poised over the registrar%u2019s form.How could I answer, how could I tell him that I was born a botanist, that I had shoeboxes of seeds and piles of pressed leaves under my bed, that I%u2019d stop my bike along the road to identify a new species, that plants colored my dreams, that the plants had chosen me? So I told him the truth. I was proud of my well-planned answer, its freshman sophistication apparent to anyone, the way it showed that I already knew some plants and their habitats, that I had thought deeply about their nature and was clearly well prepared for college work. I told him that I chose botany because I wanted to learn about why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together. I%u2019m sure I was smiling then, in my red plaid shirt.But he was not. He laid down his pencil as if there was no need to record what I had said. %u201cMiss Wall,%u201d he said, fixing me with a disappointed smile, %u201cI must tell you that that is not science. That is not at all the sort of thing with which botanists concern themselves.%u201d But he promised to put me right. %u201cI%u2019ll enroll you in General Botany so you can learn what it is.%u201d And so it began.I like to imagine that they were the first flowers I saw, over my mother%u2019s shoulder, as the pink blanket slipped away from my face and their colors flooded my consciousness. I%u2019ve heard that early experience can attune the brain to certain stimuli, so that they are processed with greater speed and certainty, so that they can be used again and again, so that we remember. Love at first sight. Through cloudy newborn eyes their radiance formed the first botanical synapses in my wideawake, newborn brain, which until then had encountered only the blurry gentleness of pink faces. I%u2019m guessing all eyes were on me, a little round baby all swaddled in bunting, but mine were on Goldenrod and Asters. I was born to these flowers and they came back for my birthday every year, weaving me into our mutual celebration.People flock to our hills for the fiery suite of October but they often miss the sublime prelude of September fields. As if harvest time were not enough %u2014 peaches, grapes, sweet corn, squash %u2014 the fields are also embroidered with drifts of golden yellow and pools of deepest purple, a masterpiece.If a fountain could jet bouquets of chrome yellow in dazzling arches of chrysanthemum fireworks, that would be Canada Goldenrod. Each three-foot stem is a geyser of tiny gold daisies, ladylike in miniature, exuberant en masse. Where the soil is damp enough, 5What descriptors would you use to characterize the advisor%u2019s behavior? Have you ever encountered similar resistance from authority figures, and if so, what was the end result?11Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.